Missed opportunities. Incompetence. Greed. The desire to consolidate absolute power.
That’s how Bush’s failed “War on Terror” will ultimately be judged in history.
Let’s set the way-back machine to September 12th 2001, and the outpouring of worldwide support and sympathy for the people of the United States. For an entire month afterward, we will actually learn as a people, to put our political and personal differences aside, and get on the same page. That in itself, is the rarest of all rare events in America, and something that only comes about on those occasions that something catastrophic enough to remove our personal boundaries happens. For the next couple of months, the United States had the entire backing of the world, as we gathered up a military force to rip out the heart of terrorism that was based in Afghanistan.
Democrats and Republicans alike both backed the mission to the Afghani region. After all, this was an opportunity to really make a difference in the world. The possibilities were endless. Establish a base of operations in Kabul, and flush out the Taliban warlords and terrorist organizations that had so plagued the world. From there, we were going to get to the heart of the problem of worldwide terrorism, by addressing its causes. We were going to look at the
brutal Sheikdoms, that
plague the region and keep the
majority of their people in abject poverty and hopelessness; the prime conditions of “nothing to lose” that extreme fundamentalist religious organizations like the Taliban prey on, and exploit for recruitment.
Well, that little pipe dream lasted an entire month afterward didn’t it?
Zoom forward to December 22nd 2001.
The Bush Administration, (for what turns out to be the first of MANY times), immediately exploits the situation of having a “blank invasion check” and installs Hamid Karzai-a former Unocal Corporation consultant, as the head of the US-backed interim government in Afghanistan. Then, on Dec. 31st, they inserted Zalmay Khalilzad, as their Special Envoy to Afghanistan.
Zhalilzad, like Karzai had earlier functioned as a Unocal consultant, participating in 1997 talks between Unocal and Taliban officials. Now that their handpicked puppets were in place, the Neo-Cons could now build their Trans-Afghanistan pipeline with absolute impunity. The troops, who those back in America were supposed to so fervently supporting, were, instead of fighting the war on terror at it’s source, were now being used as nothing more than glorified security guards for the Bush Administration’s
new oil pipeline across Afghanistan.
The pipeline deal secured, they could now set their sights on invading Iraq, which
actually was the plan all along. The U.S. kept a small coalition of forces in Afghanistan to guard their new pipeline, and immediately lied us into invading a country that not only had nothing to do with 9-11, but also
had nothing to do with the war on terror.
I could go on for pages about
Zarqawi being allowed to slip into Iraq from Jordon, and the
CIA reports on the Bush Administration bungling it came to capturing him. As the war on terror goes, he was really just not that important. Zarqawi was a symptom, that's all; The disease marches merrily along, and gets more widespread daily. I could likewise go on for pages about stolen money, no bid contracts, the “Iraqi oil to pay for the war” fiasco, Torture, the use of depleted uranium, and the hundreds of other crimes committed by the Bush Administration in Iraq, but I think all of us here know this already, and that is the subject of a future post.
Even before Bush decided to play dress-up, and strut around the deck of an aircraft carrier in a flight suit (yeah, like he actually earned the right to even put one of those one in the first place), and declare
Mission Accomplished his complete and utter failure on the war on terror had already started. In 2002, the Taliban warlords had already started to reconsolidate power. They were able to, because
of the vacuum created when the U.S. military coalition and the U.N. Security Council refused to expand the ISAF beyond Kabul. When you divert an entire army to preemptively invade a country that has nothing to do with your original objective, this is what starts to happen.
Today, all of a sudden
the corporate media spin machine decided they would run a story about the skyrocketing poppy production by the Afghani farmers. Gee, only
two years and billions of illegal dollars that were
funneled into terrorist training camps, too late. Of course we had to “liberate” Iraq; we were way to busy for little technicalities like cutting off one of the base sources of income for world wide terrorist organizations. Why do I hate America for even bringing that up?
Now,
The Taliban movement has evolved beyond its guerrilla struggle of the past, into a
resurgent, second coming, given strength through the martyring of their leaders, and the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden, and Mullah Omar, who just released a
statement saying Zarqawi’s death won't weaken the war.
Yesterday Zarqawi was killed. Instead of capturing this person, putting him on trial, and using him an example to the world of what happens if you support the Taliban, they decided to do Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar a huge favor, and martyr him instead. Almost immediately afterward
terrorist attacks were ratcheted up a notch, and
it is quite possible that today, is the day that the Iraq Civil War officially starts; kick started by the United States Military. Once again, we have proven to the world, that the United States only does one thing well anymore; Kill people. Or torture them and then kill them. Or raze entire villages, and desecrate the bodies, while armchair-chickenhawk-keyboard warriors stateside make vulgar jokes about collateral damage.
Well I am truly sorry. I can’t just be happy about the news of people dying. Not in this situation, not now, not ever. I had a belly full of it in the sixties. I took a trip to the slaughterhouse, and returned a vegetarian. Sue me.
So, we killed Zarqawi yesterday. Am I now required to bow down and worship our mighty “military-industrial-complex” now? Am I supposed to do a nice little “happy dance” because the corporate media kool-aid factory has been spoon feeding us for the last four years that this person was a bad man, and deserved to die?
Well, guess what. Some of us aren’t happy. I’m not going to be happy about it, because it does nothing but prove to me, what a dismal failure, and complete waste of opportunities and goodwill, that this whole “War on Terror” has turned into. It does absolutely nothing but give these chickenhawk, armchair warriors like Rush Limbaugh, and Shawn Hannity, an excuse to puff out their chests, strut around like they actually ever sacrificed a damn thing for this fiasco, and to spread their lies that “the Liberals WANT us to fail, they can’t even be happy about killing a Taliban leader”; All the while not even seeing the irony, that the fact that we are even IN Iraq is proof of the complete and utter failure of this entire corrupt administration, when it comes to terrorism.